2018 Hop Plantations

[N3MIS15]

I have 3 small por rhizomes and was wondering what the best plan of attack might be. I have a garden bed prepped (about a meter square). I was thinking of either putting them in pots to see which takes the best, or just putting them all in the garden bed and letting them ride. Thoughts?

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Just found two big green fat caterpillars chewing one of my whitebines...

After some manual 'squishing' this-morning I'm going to employ some chemical warfare after work.

edit: probably some Yates tomato dust as that is what i have in the cupboard ... it should take care of the caterpillars.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

I have 3 small por rhizomes and was wondering what the best plan of attack might be. I have a garden bed prepped (about a meter square). I was thinking of either putting them in pots to see which takes the best, or just putting them all in the garden bed and letting them ride. Thoughts?

What type of soil is in your garden bed? Is it nice well drained (possibly mounded?). If so, maybe just chuck them in the ground.

 

[N3MIS15]

The soil is good. It's a raised bed. My concern is with planting the 3 rhizomes in close proximity.

 

[fungrel]

I have 3 small por rhizomes and was wondering what the best plan of attack might be. I have a garden bed prepped (about a meter square). I was thinking of either putting them in pots to see which takes the best, or just putting them all in the garden bed and letting them ride. Thoughts?

If I want to split them next season, i would choose the garden bed.

If I want to plant out the crown next season and not split, i would choose the pot.

I have planted a few different varieties in different spots in the yard so i can work out which grows best and then go from there. I have also planted the same varieties in garden beds so that when i work out which variety is best, i can split a crown. I intend on making a privacy screen in the coming years.

 

[Stinger]

The soil is good. It's a raised bed. My concern is with planting the 3 rhizomes in close proximity.

No problem putting them in close proximity other than they might get a bit tangled together if you want to dig them up and split them later.
If you are running 4-5 bines up wires from each rhizome then you would want to space them apart to allow for each bine to grow 4-5 metres long, if you don't have the height then horizontal wires is a good way of training them to allow easy harvesting.

 

[abyss]

Made a couple of posts and chucked in a new POR ( thanks Curly79 ) and last years potted Cascade.
Asparagus and lettuce in between
Next year I hope to move the posts to the top of the hill for extra height.

 

[AJ80]

Checked my hop yard yesterday afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to see my new fuggles has already poked its head up out of the soil. This is a new rhizome and everything else is still well and truly dormant. Surprised given I'm still getting 3-4 frosts a week where I am.

 

[Yob]

I've a potted EKG that needs a good home, will need to bring a pot to transplant it into.

Needs to be soon as possible as it's starting to show. I'd bring a big pot.

Pickup Ringwood

 

[Rocker1986]

I'm back growing my hops again for another season. I've moved house in the last few weeks, but the hops have stayed at the olds because I am not gonna be dismantling and carting planter boxes and trellises around everyfuckinwhere we move.

Anyway, I have the same three varieties; 2nd year Cascade and 3rd year Hallertau and Fuggle. I'm not expecting much from the Fuggle, that one I'm more just keeping alive until it can be put into a bigger home, but hoping to get at least one batch worth of hops from the other two plants. The Hallertau yield last season was shit, and I haven't even used them yet.

I have one question though. The soil obviously compacted over the past year or so and is needing to be topped up. I've already done the Cascade, and will be doing the Hallertau on Saturday. I found it near on impossible to pull the roots out to lift them up a bit, and both plants had a number of shoots popping up. The Cascade ones were buried under the new soil, probably about 250mm deep. Will this cause any issues or will they just climb up through it to the surface?

 

[abyss]

I'm back growing my hops again for another season. I've moved house in the last few weeks, but the hops have stayed at the olds because I am not gonna be dismantling and carting planter boxes and trellises around everyfuckinwhere we move.

Anyway, I have the same three varieties; 2nd year Cascade and 3rd year Hallertau and Fuggle. I'm not expecting much from the Fuggle, that one I'm more just keeping alive until it can be put into a bigger home, but hoping to get at least one batch worth of hops from the other two plants. The Hallertau yield last season was shit, and I haven't even used them yet.

I have one question though. The soil obviously compacted over the past year or so and is needing to be topped up. I've already done the Cascade, and will be doing the Hallertau on Saturday. I found it near on impossible to pull the roots out to lift them up a bit, and both plants had a number of shoots popping up. The Cascade ones were buried under the new soil, probably about 250mm deep. Will this cause any issues or will they just climb up through it to the surface?

I reckon they will be fine mate they should love it.
Here's a pic of half of last years first year Saaz crown. It was the size of a pencil when first planted last year and after hacking it out of the pot (60l) I split in half with an axe.
I use heaps of mushroom compost with blood and bone plus any other shit I can find, also small amounts of water water crystals.

 

[Mardoo]

They'll be fine. I just chuck a bag of mushroom compost on top of my pots when the soil has compacted. If I can be arsed I do a proper soil blend.

 

[Rocker1986]

View attachment 107902

I reckon they will be fine mate they should love it.
Here's a pic of half of last years first year Saaz crown. It was the size of a pencil when first planted last year and after hacking it out of the pot (60l) I split in half with an axe.
I use heaps of mushroom compost with blood and bone plus any other shit I can find, also small amounts of water water crystals.

I'm guessing that's what mine look like as well. The Cascade started from a similarly sized rhizome last year, and now has tree trunk like roots around the crown from what I could see. It was started in the planter box though so it had a much larger area than the Hallertau in its first year which was grown in a pot as well. Anyway, if they'll be fine then I'll just carry on as planned on the weekend and wait for them to poke their heads up.

 

[pcqypcqy]

I bought off the guys here at AHB back in May, and have been storing them in damp newspaper in the fridge since then. I planted out a few weekends ago, probably 3 weeks now. It's warming up in Toowoomba, still getting the odd frost but should be largely done by now.

The Fuggles must have been thicker crowns as these shot up very quickly, only took a week to sprout. I also have Mt Hood, Goldings and Hersbrucker, most of which are starting to shoot out and break the soil now.

For a trellis I have strung up a sturdy rope from a tall tree in the back yard to the back of the house, over a garden bed. I've attached pulleys to the rop, and have individual lines of doubled up baling twine pegged down to each. I can either lower the whole lot together with the main rope, or individually drop each vine for harvesting. The idea with the pulleys was to let me drop a vine and then pull it back up again for whatever reason, such as periodic harvesting.

The garden bed runs N/S, and it's against the eastern fence. The last photo was taken around 7am, so once they achieve some height they should be getting full sun all of the day. Certainly from 9am through to evening they're in full sun. The garden was just prepared by turning over as deep as I could to break it all up (hadn't been done in years, so was rock hard), and then mounding up as shown. Mulched with lucerne.

Watering will be via drippers that I will install soon. Water for that will either be relatively clean gray water from the kids bath, or from the water tank. From what I can read, hops need around 37.5mm rain equivalent per week. I've worked out that for my garden bed this is around 40 litres per day, which is not insignificant.

 

[AJ80]

Checked my second year Victoria yesterday and it has started going nuts. 6-7 bines poking through already. Mulched the crap out of them as the weather is still crap where I am (snow predicted for tomorrow). Still have just the one bine through on my first year fuggles and everything else is still well and truly asleep. Have others growing Victoria also found it to be an early riser??

 

[Mardoo]

Yep. Mine has three just out of the ground. They're moving slowly, but definitely moving.

EDIT: Make that nine just out. Six since yesterday. Wow.

 

[Helles]

Finally got the hops gardens done
Hops in mostly cascade with some victoria Hersbruker and 1 chinnook
Needs more mulch
First time growing these at a new house

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Dr Rudi has decided to make an entrance.

 

[twinathon]

All ten of my plants are still snoozing below, though it has been cold where I am so not surprising.

 

[drsmurto]

Victoria is always the first out of the blocks but if you are growing Chinook for the first time, beware, it will wait much longer and then fly out of the blocks and outgrow anything else. Fecking weeds. [emoji1]